Instead the three linked hands and minds and attacked the warded circle with their strongest spells.
At the same time Taral and the other members of the Council of Seven bombarded the area with their magic.
For a moment the protective field flared red, then orange, then yellow. It held. The Sylvan, having no means to combat this type of sorcery, simply ignored it and continued their own offensive, though perhaps a trifle more aggressively than before.
Hawk saw Ro run through the protective curtain as though it did not exist and head toward the enemy sorcerers.
Then the domed field flared again, turned brilliant white, and exploded in sheets of flame. A blast of burning air knocked Hawk to the ground, searing his skin and blinding him for a few seconds. When his sight returned, he found himself lying across part of the scorched and now powerless perimeter of the circle. A screen of yellowish-brown fog obliterated everything, and when he contacted the mueagles, he saw that the cloud stretched across the whole top of the hill.
Hawk pulled himself up, picked up the sword he’d dropped, and headed in the direction he thought Ro had gone. Suddenly an Empire soldier lurched out of the fog in front of Hawk and engaged him in a duel. Although his opponent was much taller and heavier, as Hawk danced in and out with a series of swift thrusts and parries, he realized that his smaller size gave him advantages in speed and maneuverability. Giving ground to the soldier’s blows, he fought with calculated ease, buoyed with unexpected confidence in his own ability to defeat the man. Then Hawk spotted the opening he’d waited for, sprang forward, and thrust beneath the other’s guard.
As the soldier fell, Hawk noticed that the fog was lifting. He again contacted his eagles and, through rising streamers of smoke, saw a group of tall figures—the Sylvan. They appeared to be unharmed, still linked in their efforts against the Imperial Army, and seemed totally oblivious to the action around them.
The birds flew over their heads toward the top of the promontory where the fog had cleared. There stood Derek S’Mayler and, about twenty feet in front of him, Douglas S’Stratford and the Red Witch. The slightly shimmering halo extending from Derek back to the forest people was evidence that he still shielded them.
While S’Stratford blasted Derek with a spear of blue light from the tip of his staff, Jessica S’Logan’s outstretched hand aimed bursts of energy at him through the spellstone in her ring. Almost at her feet lay Vadim Strelkov’s half-charred body.
Still viewing the scene through his eagles, Hawk turned and headed in that direction.
“Derek, give it up,” called the Red Witch. As she began to speak, Derek’s shield faded for an instant. “You are weak, your shield is failing … ” His face was strained with tension and fatigue, but her voice acted like a stimulant to the hatred he felt toward her, and from that hatred sprang a reserve of strength. His shield grew brighter and stabilized.
Seeing the anger in his face, she frowned and then stepped forward with a smile to try a new ploy. Beneath her sun-flamed hair, her face was as cold, beautiful, and perfect as a diamond.
“You can join us, become one of the Council of Seven. You are a great sorcerer, and we can use you. You loved me once, I can be yours again. You can have it all—wealth, power, land, and a return of the love that we once shared. Join us … “
Derek laughed with contempt, “I’ll see you in N’Omb’s fires first.”
Jessica only smiled. “Join us … “
Suddenly figures darted through the smoke behind her—Ro and Coleman S’Wessex. Coleman veered left and slashed at S’Stratford with his sword, while Ro ran toward Jessica. Although Coleman’s sword bounced off S’Stratford’s protective field with a dull clang, Ro’s immunity to magic enabled her blade to pass through Jessica’s shield. It plunged into her side.
With a look of surprise the Red Witch twisted toward Ro, casting a spell that should have killed Ro instantly but had no effect.
Meanwhile, Jaxton Sinclair had appeared through the dissipating smoke. Seeing Ro and Coleman he quickly cast a paralyzing spell against them, but only Coleman fell. As Ro raised her sword to strike at Jessica again, Jaxton realized that she was somehow immune to his sorcery, so he drew his own sword and ran toward her.
Hawk had just reached the clustered Sylvan, so he shouted a warning, but Ro was still too far away to hear. Her sword slammed into Jessica, and the Red Witch died.
As if in slow motion, Hawk saw Jaxton Sinclair’s blade slice toward Ro, knew he could not reach her in time, and automatically called his eagles down toward the falcon-telepath, even though he realized that they would not be able to penetrate the man’s sorcery.
The sound of wings caused Ro to pull upright and begin to turn, altering the path of Jaxton’s sword as it cut into her back.
The eagles shrieked as they dived at Jaxton with talons extended like knives, and instinctively he reached for their minds as he reacted from his lifetime of bird-telepathy instead of from his few weeks as a sorcerer.
Feeling Hawk’s mind smash into him like a fist, Jaxton realized his mistake, but it was too late—he was not strong enough to break from the telepathic duel to use the powers of the Thantos Pendant. So he slashed back with mental daggers that cut into Hawk’s shields. Suddenly he sensed that this time there would be no interruption to their battle—it would be a duel to the death.
As each man attacked, parried, and counterattacked, their minds became entwined in a struggle that threatened to destroy them both.
At first Hawk pounded at Jaxton’s mind wildly in the heat of rage, for he’d seen Ro fall at the other’s hand and had been unable to prevent it. But as Jaxton countered each blow with ease and struck back with telling intensity, Hawk quickly realized that his anger and frustration were hindering his attack.
He struggled to relax, and gradually his anger cooled and sharpened into the bright, focused flame of a glassblower’s torch instead of the uncontrolled raging of a fire. The flame became a weapon, the blazing intensity behind his assault. Cautiously he cut through Jaxton’s shields, slowly burning his way through the other’s mind.
As Hawk’s torch touched Jaxton’s nerve centers, Jaxton felt as though his body were being slowly incinerated. He thrust back repeatedly, but his growing realization of Hawk’s power ate away at his strength. Intellectually he knew that fear could do as much to defeat him as his brother could, but he could not rid himself of it. As Jaxton’s fear grew, he weakened, until he found himself using all of his power to shield himself, and he was unable to return Hawk’s blows.
Feeling Hawk’s mind close around his in a vise grip that could crush his last shields, Jaxton gathered together his remaining reserves of strength for one final blow. There was only one thing left he could use against Hawk that might free him from the death grip—the knowledge of Hawk’s true identity.
He opened a small gate in his shield and released a flood of memories and thoughts that held that knowledge.
Images flashed through Hawk’s mind. He probed them for deception, but they were real, and he was too deep within Jaxton’s mind to be fooled by lies. Sifting through Jaxton Sinclair’s memories, he learned of his mother, his family, his heritage; he relived his capture in Kellerton through Jaxton’s eyes, feeling Jaxton’s pain and surprise at the revelation of their relationship.
With the instantaneous and undeniable transfer of knowledge came Jaxton’s thought: Spare me, for we are brothers.
Brothers! The word echoed through Hawk’s mind like thunder from lightning that strikes too close. Stunned, he jerked away from the memories, loosening his hold on Jaxton.
The image of his mother’s jade pin whirled through his mind—a wheel of seven leaves; but now be knew it for what it was—the sign of the S’Akron family; and he knew himself for what he was—the son of a S’Akron and a Sinclair.
In that moment Jaxton struck with the last of his strength.
The unexpected blow snapped Hawk’s main shields. His mind reeled under the force of Jaxt
on’s assault and the shock of his new knowledge. As Hawk struggled to regain his equilibrium, Jaxton took advantage of every opening and hesitation, stabbing down into Hawk’s consciousness.
Fleeing through dark corridors of his mind, Hawk searched for a weapon, a shield, an escape from the wheel of knives that seemed to pursue him. He was being driven toward a void he’d touched once before, but from which he could not hope to escape again.
He dodged and reached for something that glittered with strength. He clung to it and thrust it before him.
It was a shield. It was a weapon. It was the image of Ro falling beneath Jaxton’s blade. It was the image of his hawk being torn apart by Jaxton’s falcons. It was hatred and vengeance. It was strength.
As Hawk merged with it, it blocked all thoughts of his relationship to Jaxton. He only knew that he must fight and survive. Slowly, inexorably, he fought his way back into Jaxton’s mind.
Jaxton’s strength was gone. He had no weapons left, nothing to use except his memories. One by one, good and bad, he threw them at Hawk, but they rolled off Hawk’s shield like raindrops against a rock.
We are brothers, his mind whispered through the haze of pain that wrapped around him in a smothering cocoon.
But Hawk had no room for any emotions or thoughts other than the fury that drove him to smash again and again at Jaxton, until suddenly he felt all that had been Jaxton Sinclair dissolve into a vast emptiness that left him alone with a word that reverberated through his mind like wind whistling over an eagle’s wings—Brother.
Then the darkness closed in.
19
A liquid that tasted like walnuts and honey touched his lips and tongue. Hawk choked on it and coughed, but managed to gulp some down. Then he became fully conscious and recognized it: tomaad.
Although his whole body ached with numbing weariness, he forced his eyes open. Then he blinked and reached out with hesitant fingertips, not quite sure he was really awake and alive, but the sea-green eyes staring down at him with concern were real.
“Ro!” he whispered. “But I saw you fall … “
“The sorcerer only wounded me. I may not be able to use this arm for a while, but I’ll live.” Then she forced him to drink the rest of the Sylvan tonic. As she bent, Hawk saw that the left sleeve of her tunic was ripped and bloody and that her shoulder and back were roughly bandaged with torn strips of material.
“You killed him, didn’t you?” she asked. “Jaxton Sinclair … “
Hawk nodded. Fighting against the weakness and pain, he propped himself up on one arm and asked urgently. “What happened then?”
“We’ve won. I think we’ve won.” She sat back on her heels and stared past him with a wan smile and a sudden expression of deep sadness in her eyes. Hawk followed her gaze beyond the ring of Sylvan to the tall, lonely figure of Derek S’Mayler.
“With the Red Witch and Sinclair dead, Derek was able to shift some of his energy from defense of the Sylvan to an attack on the third sorcerer; I think he was Lord S’Stratford. Evidently our sorcerers at the castle had recovered enough by then to block Taral and the other Empire sorcerers from attacking Derek. So S’Stratford found himself fighting alone. Realizing that he could not overcome Derek without help, S’Stratford fled, taking what was left of his troops with him.
“Through it all, the Sylvan just continued their assault, until Taral’s army was simply forced to retreat. Their war machines and bows were useless, and many of their horses had stampeded. With the siege broken, a great company of York’s troops left the castle and began attacking the retreating army. That’s where we are now.”
“Then Taral’s army is retreating?”
“Yes.”
“And what about Coleman?” Hawk asked.
A tear slowly crept down her cheek. “I don’t know. He was paralyzed, just hanging on to life by a thread. I gave him tomaad, but it may have been too late, there didn’t seem to be any effect. We took him down to the camp, or what’s left of it, with the other wounded. Then when I came back I saw you lying here.”
Although he was only just beginning to feel the effects of the tomaad, Hawk struggled to his feet.
He staggered as a wave of dizziness hit him, and Ro grabbed him with her good arm. Leaning against her, he felt the vertigo pass.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, just very, very tired,” he answered. Then he noticed that the Sylvan had broken from their huddle and were heading back toward the camp. Feeling stronger, he loosened his hold on Ro’s arm and walked slowly over to Elihen.
“What’s going on?” he asked the huge half-Sylvan.
“We’ve finished for the moment. Taral’s army is in full retreat, and his sorcerers are no longer bothering to attack us.”
“Where are you … “
Elihen smiled. “Down to get something to eat.” He patted Hawk’s shoulder with his enormous hand. “Come along, you look like you need some food and some rest, too.”
“In a few minutes,” Hawk replied, his eyes on Ro.
As Elihen walked away, Hawk continued to watch Ro. She was half-turned away from him, looking up the hill toward Derek S’Mayler.
Standing alone at the top of the promontory, the sorcerer seemed on the verge of collapse. His face was pale and haggard, his body slumped forward and wavering with fatigue, his eyes vacantly staring out at the retreating enemy.
While the pain and longing in Ro’s face echoed through Hawk’s mind, his feelings for her resolved themselves with disturbing clarity.
Now that he knew that his blood was as noble as hers, it no longer mattered. It was not their births that divided them, it was their basic natures.
He looked wistfully at Ro, wishing that things could be different. She had been his first love, and he would probably always love her in a way. They had traveled the same path for a little while, but now they had to go their separate ways. And somehow he knew that Ro would not be the last woman he loved.
He stared at Derek’s lonely figure, remembering the expression of concern for Ro he’d seen in Derek’s eyes. If any woman were capable of restoring Derek’s trust and whining his love, it was Ro.
She was still looking sadly up the hill at Derek.
Hawk touched her arm gently. Her deep-green eyes met his. In them he could see her love for his friend.
“Go to him, Ro,” he said. “He’s the one that needs you.”
Her eyes studied his searchingly.
“Go on. You want to, you know.”
“Yes,” she answered. “I guess I do.” Then she determinedly walked up the hill.
Hawk watched her until she reached Derek. He didn’t know if things would work out between them. Surprisingly, he found himself hoping that they would.
He turned away and saw Jaxton Sinclair’s body.
Something drew him toward his brother. His eyes, as brown as Hawk’s own, stared upward in a glaze of death; but his face was the face of a stranger, and Hawk could see little similarity between it and his own.
Then he noticed the twisted chains of the pendant and the jade pin lying against Jaxton’s throat. Automatically he knelt and touched the pin—My mother’s pin, he thought; then a part of his mind corrected, Our mother’s pin.
The jade pin was his again, and he knew that the Pendant of Thantos was his now as well.
Gently he removed the chains from around his brother’s neck. He looked at them closely, comparing the design of leaves on each, as he knew his brother had. He pulled the chain bearing the pin over his head and pocketed the Pendant of Thantos.
Soon he would learn to control the spellstone, and then he would wear it, but not until he had time to consider and absorb all that he had learned from Jaxton. When he had come to accept that knowledge fully, he would be able to accept the Thantos as his inheritance.
Hawk glanced up at the dark blue of the afternoon sky and reached for his birds. Then he was one with Windrifter and Stormrider, soaring above the retreating Imperial Army.
Though they had won the battle, he knew that long years of fighting still lay ahead of them before the rest of the Eastern Kingdoms could be freed and the threat of Taral’s Empire completely removed. However, for the moment they had won, and York, at least, was free.
He flew the mueagles higher, reaching for the sun. The rays warmed them and gave them strength. They soared, and their feathers turned golden in the sun.
He was still the master of hawks, but now he was something more, for he had become master of himself and his own emotions. And in defeating Jaxton he had found his true identity.
His real name was Gregory Sinclair. He was a noble of the S’Akron family.
From Jaxton’s memories he knew that Geoff S’Akron’s son still lived, but if the boy were to die, Hawk would become the heir to one of the largest kingdoms in the Empire.
In the meantime he’d inherited the vast Sinclair estates, if he could prove his claim. Perhaps he could find a way to use his new position to speed the Empire’s downfall.
In any case, he had the Pendant of Thantos, and that in itself was a powerful weapon.
Suddenly the part of him that was still anchored to the earth laughed as the eagles soared toward the sun. Someday he knew he was going to touch it.
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